Thanks for everyone's comments. I've generally been rubbish at getting a solid idea off the ground from the start, and while my original idea was to find ways to buff up stall, after a couple pages I've seen that my idea could be applied for the good of offensive teams in a broader sense. I've expanded upon the original concept to give it more of a place in toning down the fast style of current games.

Name: Weather breakerGeneral Description: a pokemon made to shut down teams centered around weather.Justification: Weather teams of all sorts have been prevalent in the OU metagame. we had one CAP already based off of abusing weather, just to show how huge it is.Questions To Be Answered:

How will this pokemon function outside of weather conditions?
Will an offensive movepool or a support movepool be best for this role?
How can this pokemon come into battles to shut down weather unnexpectedly?
what strategies must be used to make this pokemon viable in OU/CAP?

Explanation: Honestly, i've seen too many politoeds, ninetales, and abomasnows in OU and CAP. it seems to me like every team is centered around weather. there are ways of countering these teams, but I would like to see an easy counter to weather. a pokemon who has a way to shut down those weather abusers would be a way to completely rock the meta.

Name: “The Wall of Pain” (Alternatively: “The Sweep Stopper”)General Description: A Pokémon that can stop sweepers clean with an array of disrupting moves instead of being a meat shield.Justification: We have a lot of Pokémon that wall. Usually, it’s the natural bulk that ends the sweeps. However, there are nearly no Pokémon that can end a sweep without needing a bit of bulk. This concept will fix that by giving the metagame a ‘mon that can take on the many sweepers of the metagame and even become a threat on its own.

Questions To Be Answered:

What are OU’s top sweepers most threatened by?

Do walls necessarily need bulk to function well?

What kinds of disrupting moves are needed to mess with the sweepers’ potential?

How much offense does The Wall of Pain need to become a threat itself?

Will Taunt be a necessity to stop this Pokémon, effectively increasing usage of its users?

Will the metagame be at least a bit less offensive with the introduction of The Wall Of Pain?

Explanation: While there ARE many status inducers in the metagame, most are either not offensive enough or cannot take the advantage of sweeping after the opponent switches out. This concept plans to fix that, by having a Pokémon that can not only cripple many sweepers, but can also sweep on its own. Yes, that would make the pokemon counter itself, but it would also be able to counter OU's toughest sweepers. By threatening them with status and the possibility of KO, I'd see this pokémon widely used, as a sweeper or sweep stopper.

Alright, my response to everyone at once that I worked on for a good hour's time was lost, so I'm feeling pretty somber. I'm going to do the best I can to reiterate my thoughts again.

I want to apologize if I come off as completely asinine to any of you reading this. I'm fully aware that I'm trying to push a controversial concept that some of you don't agree with. I can't necessarily change that, I get it. I just ask that you read into what I am saying with a more open mind than just "It wouldn't work." Remember that the concepts in CAP are to learn, not create a balanced metagame. There will be plenty to learn from the "Frostbite" concept, I assure you.

First off, yes, as the OU metagame currently is, it's impossible to pull of the concept, as "reliable freezing" is a total oxymoron in the current state of the metagame. However, that is exactly the point of this concept: to remove that label for the Freeze status. Doing this will likely require creating a new move. As much as we'd like to avoid that altogether, it has been done sparingly and when a concept needs it. That one move will be all it takes to open up an entire horizon beneath us. If a move that simply induces a status (which every other status has, may I remind us all) is all it takes for us to learn about said status in a relevant manner, then will it really ruin anything for us? Is the whole idea of a new move to explore a concept going to hurt us in any way? Please enlighten me if it can.

Second, we need not worry about Freeze as a status plaguing the metagame like Sleep would without the Sleep Clause. The Freeze Clause, which is an officially recognized clause in the meta, could easily be activated inside of the CAP metagame if we so please. Let me give you this scenario.

Game Freak decides to release a brand new event legendary that specializes in freezing opponents reliably. It finds itself right smack dab in the middle of BW2 OU, where it makes excellent use of its Freeze-status.

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Prior to its introduction, we never really needed the Freeze Clause due to almost non-existent Freeze status ailments. Starting a clause with no actual relevancy to the meta would make no sense. But now that it's there, would you have any doubt that the Smogon Community would activate it? Could you honestly reason why we wouldn't activate it in a heartbeat?

That being said, if we as the community decide to learn from this concept, there are no consequences to activating the Freeze Clause at the very least during the playtesting due to how it will simulate OU very much like how the actual meta would handle it. It's our CAP metagame. You can nitpick the details of activating such a clause all day if you wanted, but it wouldn't change the fact that activating Freeze Clause would just make sense in learning about our neglected status ailment. If it's beneficial to learning an age-old mechanic of Pokemon, then we can adjust the server's rules accordingly. The only limit to our actions is how badly we want to explore a concept.

Lastly, let me just list out what we'd be learning about by giving Freeze a place in the metagame:

The actual mechanics of Freeze itself

Its comparisons and contrasts to Sleep

Which Pokemon have a niche in OU with their Ice-typing

Which Pokemon may drop from OU with their weakness to Freezing

How the metagame would handle a "new" status ailment, including team selection processes and measures it takes to prevent being affected by it

The potential of otherwise underused Ice-types

The effects of an increase in Sunlight and Hail as weather teams and if balance is finally possible in the Weather Wars

The risk factor to having more than/attempting to shut more than one Pokemon down

The strength of Freeze as a status compared to Burn, Toxic, and Paralysis

Prediction and momentum changes in switching into a Freeze-inducing CAP

The overall pace of the meta

That is a rather decent sized list given that this is only the concept of a preexisting element in the games. Those that support concepts related to giving hardly seen abilities a place in the meta, understand that Freeze not only appeals to the exact same reasoning you have for supporting them, but predates them by nearly 10 years.

A concept like this is overdue, revolutionary, and an excellent learning experience should we give it a try. To those of you that read all of this, thank you for listening to me. If you disagree still, thank you for at least tolerating my words. If there are still points I'm overlooking as to why this shouldn't be at the very least slated for our CAP5 concept, by all means, please tell me.

Name: Rock the BoatGeneral Description: A Pokemon that introduces an entirely new strategy to the metagameJustification: The metagame tends to become more stagnant over time, as the bad playstyles are weeded out and the best few recieve more attention. For example, Rain Offense and Deoxys-D hyper Offense are regarded as dominant playstyles right now, while other playstyles like Sun Stall and Trick Room gather dust in a corner. The goal of this concept is to see what would happen if an entirely new playstyle was introduced.Questions to be answered:
What other possible playstyles are out there?
What would it take to make them viable?
How would the metagame adapt to an entirely new playstyle? Would formerely unviable playstyles that fare well against the new playstyle become more common? Would existing playstyles shift to exclude the newcomer, possibly sending it back to uselessness?

Explanation: First off, I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting we make something like Hail/Trick Room/Baton Pass good. I am suggesting something completely out of the blue, or something that has formerely been a 100% failure. This concept aims not to teach us so much about the CAP, but more about the surrounding metagame, specifically what it takes for a playstyle to be successful, and what the old standbys would have to do to adapt. It also would teach us with what was rejected, by giving us ideas of what other playstyles might exist, waiting to be discovered. It would also give us a better idea of what it takes exactly to make a playstyle good.

CAP Head Mod

First of all, I wanted to address a particular issue that I've seen crop up a few times, both in this thread and on IRC. Do not link your personal worth to your ideas, ever. People are more then welcome to dislike your concept and speak out against it. They are not attacking you when they do this, but rather, they simply don't like your idea. Just because someone doesn't like your concept doesn't mean they hate your guts, haha. You're all respectable people, so try not to fall into this mental trap of personally linking yourself to your ideas.

I'm still cooking up my concept submission, but I thought I'd take some time out to discuss some of the other concepts that are currently on the table. The following four concepts that I'm about to critique aren't necessarily my favorites (I love Korski's and capefeather's submissions), but I feel like they are worth pursuing with our discussions.

General Description: With this Pokemon we attempt to balance the four weather conditions, along with the lack of any such condition, such that all five types of team are equally viable.

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I ADORE this concept; it's entirely underrated and deserves some more love. This is one of the most ambitious concepts I've ever read, and I think CAP could use a good challenge this time around. Furthermore, it fits perfectly into the current metagame. Weather runs rampant, and addressing all five scenarios gives us a lot to study. I think this concept is both genius and time-sensitive, so I hope that we can seriously consider this concept for CAP 5 before it is too late.

General Description: This pokemon is very, very hard to take down via brute force, and thanks to its ability, stats, and / or movepool, can reliably check a vast majority of the common offensive threats and force them into an undesirable position. However, it has other drawbacks: it cannot provide much support to its team besides taking big hits, and is vulnerable to other strategies like status effects or spike stacking.

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Don't worry about similarity to other concepts; this one is unique enough that it deserves to be addressed. This is yet another ambitious concept that I think would give us a run for our money. What I like most about this concept is that it's a step up from the typical "Great Wall" concept; you suggest a legitimate means of bringing this Pokemon down. BW2 is incredibly offensive, and I think that of the weatherless concepts, this one is the strongest. Good work on this.

I was reading the OU "CAP discussion thread" and I noticed that there were two main things they wanted out of CAP5: 1) Weather control and 2) Hazard Control. The first has been beaten to death. The second?

Name: Hazard ControlGeneral Description: A pokemon who utilizes a variety of options, such as movepool and ability, to fulfill its goal—keep hazards off of your side, and on your opponent's.

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Go further with this. You are correct in identifying that hazards are one of the most centralizing forces of the BW metagame; almost every team runs a hazard, if not multiple hazards. However, I think the idea of "make a Pokemon that is good at laying hazards and removing them" isn't focused enough. When given a choice, players are more often going to lay hazards (offensive move) instead of remove them (defensive move). Look at ganj's submission above to help you come to a conclusion here. Do what you want, but I think there is a lot more to be discussed about hazard control if you gear the concept to be more defensive (remove hazards) than offensive (add hazards). It's an interesting concept, but I think you need to make up your mind on some of these things in order for us to get some good learning out of it.

"Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter."

Name: Last Stand

General Description: A pokemon that excels at turning around games that would otherwise be lost causes.

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Interesting. This isn't a novel idea by any means; we've seen plenty of late game concepts in the past. One of the big topics in competitive battling nowadays is that of win conditions. The idea of removing opposing threats to guarantee a win is the focus of many competitive players. It'd be interesting to explore the idea of removing that win condition when the opponent feels like they have it secured. It might be something you consider addressing in this concept.

Name: Defensive TerrorGeneral Description: A Pokemon that helps to combat offense by actively discouraging attacks made against it, or even the entire team. In other words, a pokemon that defends not merely through defense, but also using threat.Justification: People like to argue, again and again, that stall is unviable. That power creep and the sheer offensive presense of many pokemon renders any attempts to stop them from steamrolling a team futile and worthless. But there are plenty of walls - hell, plenty of strong walls. But they don't seem to be doing enough. My idea for how to change this is to have a pokemon that stops attacks before they even start. A pokemon that your opponent is afraid to attack. I think that, especially if geared towards current major threats, this could cause a very interesting upheaval in the metagame.Questions To Be Answered:

- Can a pokemon stop threats by being a threat itself?
- What would it take to make a pokemon that can "discourage attacks"?
- Could such a pokemon improve the viability of stall, and defensive tactics in general?
- Would new threats arise intended specifically to get around this new trump card?
- Is fear a viable defense?

Explanation: The idea here is to create a pokemon that can't necessarily sweep, but stands in the way of generically powerful attacks by making it a massive risk to try and take it out head on. The idea, you could almost say, is to improve stall by introducing a pokemon that stops offense, but is not very good against stall.

The inspiration here is coming from a number of places, in particular, I was thinking of Ferrothorn, which manages to be an effective wall, but also punishes physical attackers with its iron barbs ability. I think things like this could be expanded upon to make a pokemon that carries through with that basic idea - punishing attacks - and takes it much farther. Most walls in the metagame have some layer of threat, otherwise they're simply not useful, of course: Chansey and Blissey toss around status all over the place, Gliscor throws around toxics and Earthquakes. The issue is, these pokemon can all be gotten around - often fairly easily - just by using a different kind of offense, and I'm sure that will be true of this CaP, if it gets made.

tl;dr: The best defense against offense is an offensive defense that doesn't fare very well against defense's offenses

Name: Match up MasterGeneral Description: A pokemon with a wide offense move pool that relies on super effective moves to do significant damage.Justification: Weaknesses are a big part of Pokemon, but lately, with dragons and steels and water reining the meta game, neutral coverage is king. Such a pokemon could use its move pool to be tailor made to combat a teams weaknesses, and be useful for any team.Questions to be answered
Can a pokemon succed without being able to effectivly attack neutraly?
Is super effective damage any good compared to powerful neutral dragon attacks?
What types would be most popular for its attacks?Explanation: This would not be krillowatt 2.0, rather it would be tailored to destroy problematic Pokemon, but would have trouble versus stuff that is neutral to its moves. I imagine it could be a fast, mildly bulky pokemon with low offence, but an excelent move pool that allows it to target dragons, bug/steels, or waters as it chooses. However, stuff like chansey or spiritomb (lol) would wreak it.

General Description: A Pokemon that can control the weather and shift momentum away from an opposing weather team without simply becoming another tool for extant weather teams to continue their dominance.

Justification: The entire metagame has shifted to weather wars, particularly due to Drizzle Politoed, and also to a lesser extent Ninetales. A team that doesn't take advantage of weather has a hard time facing one that does.

Questions To Be Answered:

How does one make a weather limiter that doesn't help current rain/sun teams overmuch against their opposite weather?

What sort of Pokemon fares well against the common themes and Pokemon of rain and sun teams? (e.g. stopping a sweeper like Venusaur or Kingdra.)

Why are extant Cloud Nine users unable to perform their function in OU?

​

Explanation: I know we're not supposed to specify such things as 'when this Pokemon switches in, all weather is nullified' or 'this Pokemon should have (ability)', but in a metagame utterly dominated by rain and sun, it really would be handy to have something to keep the skies clear. There have been a couple other suggestions in this thread on the matter, and while this may be a similar suggestion, I believe the variations between them can lead to more creative discourse.

We currently have Golduck/Altaria/Lickilicky for Cloud Nine, but they're almost unusable in OU. Rayquaza and its Air Lock ability are locked into Ubers. "Ultimate Weather Abuser" was listed as a good idea, so "Ultimate Weather Defuser" sounds like a fun parallel. Once infinite weather starts, there only exist moves to change the weather, and asides from Cloud Nine, only abilities that change the weather. Stopping it entirely is uncommon. It gives the advantage to neither team, but could make certain Pokemon that fare poorly in the more common weather types more useable.

In order to permanently remove weather, a weather-causing move would have to be used, and the 5-turn counter run down. (Though Cloud Nine/Air Lock means that no effect is seen.) If this CAP wanted to do this, it would need to be good at walling the current rain/sun abusers and able to defeat the Drought/Drizzle starters. A Pokemon that can actually end weather, not just change it or suppress an opposing weather, isn't much good as a weather teammate. This Pokemon would have to last out the 5 turns of null weather in order to have any noticeable effect, and would thus have to be fairly bulky. Recovery would allow it to be used multiple times in the event of a backup weather starter on the enemy team.

The real challenge here is designing a Pokemon like this that should not be used on a standard rain or sun team. It should not be able to take advantage of the increased STABs of rain and sun, it should not be aided overmuch by the decreased damage of certain types in weather, and it shouldn't provide good synergy with the common types that abuse rain and sun. (Grass/Fire/Water) There's plenty of discussion to be had here, so I'll leave it at that.

Moderator

There are a lot of ideas out there already, a number of which could be quite interesting. Anyways, since you all took the time to submit, I'd like to at least give some brief thoughts on each one. So, let's start from the top:

Rhys DeAnno's The Heart of Stall: Stall is something that is brought up during the concept stage of most CAP projects, and normally I am not too big a fan of it. However, I do think that you have made this a bit more interesting than previous such concepts by specifically stating that you want this Pokemon to not just be a good addition to stall teams, but to be the defining element of them: an archetype defining Pokemon in the same vein as weather starters. On the one hand, this take us out of the "let's make a stall Pokemon and see what happens" mindset and makes us think a lot more about general team archetypes, which I feel is a much more interesting route to take. However, this is also a very dangerous concept to attempt. By its very nature we would be trying to make something that is on the same level of Pokemon that people have been arguing over whether to ban or not for years. I don't think this itself is reason not to do it, but I would like to see more details on what we would want to be getting out of it before trying such a thing. I think the concepts biggest strength would be the focus on archetypes, so I would suggest that, especially in the questions section, you go more into what there is to learn regarding team types specifically, and not just things that apply to making a good staller.

Deck Knight's Climate Control: While this could potentially be interesting, the problem I have with a concept like this is that I simply can't see it working. I know this was brought up to you on IRC last night, but while the goal of the concept seems to be to help get rid of weather, in reality, a Pokemon designed to do the job you want would simply be used by weather teams to help beat other weather teams. And, of course, there is the problem that this practically necessitates a specific ability. I'm not the biggest fan of trapping in general, but I will admit that it could be interesting to look at. However when framed around the weather wars, I can't really see it doing what is intended at all.

Yilx's The Big Dipper: I really like this one. Wallbreaking is something everyone thinks they know something about, but the focus on breaking team cores, rather than individual walls, especially when going about it in ways other than pure power, is not really something that I feel we have ever looked all that far into. The biggest strength of this concept in my mind though is the questions. In them, it is clearly laid out exactly the kinds of things we will be looking into with this concept. Investigating what cores really are, or what makes something a wallbreaker are wonderful things for us to think about.

skr1214's Number Cruncher: Honestly, I'm not really sure what you are trying to get at with this concept. Numbers and math are very important to the game of competitive Pokemon, true enough, but we look into such number to some extent every single project. I feel there could be something interesting buried in there, but you will definitely have to be more specific, as right now, I really have no idea what the goals of the concept are, much less how one would even think to start going about accomplishing them.

GatoDelFuego's Chill Pill: Like with the Heart of Stall concept above, this is an attempt to improve stall, but not necessarily through simply making a good stall Pokemon. However, if you want this concept to shine, I think you need to emphasize how you want to go about this more. Specifically, I would like to see more detail regarding those first two questions you ask. Looking in detail at negative momentum and free turns is a lot more in depth of a topic than simply looking at how to make a good stall Pokemon. My main concern here is that this would venture over into territory that we already looked at back in gen V CAP 1, Tomohawk, whose concept was about momentum.

Rayquaza_'s Compact Movepool: This is kind of an overly simple concept. Make a Pokemon with a smallish movepool that is not bad. I simply don't see us getting that much out of this. I think the best way to explain what I mean in a way that is also applicable to other concepts would be to point at the questions. Three of the four are more about if it is possible or what we will need to do to make it possible than anything that which the answer to would be something we are interested in learning. That being said, I will point to the last question as something that is definitely better than the others. While I that is not enough to alone justify this concept, an investigation surrounding the "4 moveslot syndrome" would have a lot more merit to it, as it would be looking for information that would be applicable across all of competitive Pokemon.

Base Speed's Type Equalizer: Like with Yilx's concept above, I think your first couple of questions really seem to get it. Looking at what actually makes types good or not, and the trends that surround them, both in general and in the OU metagame could definitely be interesting. That being said, while it is different in concept, I feel that the goals are very similar to those of the concept for gen V CAP 3, Mollux. While Mollux focused more on bad types than good ones, the ideas about type quality are the same. I'd suggest that you try and differentiate a bit more by going it to detail on how we would attempt to go about it. I think that the concept is a bit vague, and would benefit from having a bit more direction so we can more clearly know what to expect and how by doing this we will be learning things not covered in previous projects.

forestflamerunner's Ability Matchmaker: So, this is pretty much the same concept that was chosen back for gen IV CAP 8, Cyclohm. Now that itself is not an inherent problem, but I don't particularly find this concept all that interesting. While there are plenty of ways such a project could go, in the end, none of them really have a goal in mind. All of them are about taking an ability, throwing them on a Pokemon, making it OU, and seeing what happens, which, as I stated in my first post, is not really the kind of road I want to go down with this project.

The Unlucky one's Ultimate Priority Abuser: I think this concept has some of the same problems as some of the above such as Compact Movepool and Ability Matchmaker. It seems like this is too much about making a Pokemon that does stuff with priority without any really goal in mind for what we want to get out of that. Once more, I will point to the questions section as the key evidence of a problem. As I said up about Compact Movepool, most questions here are simply of the "what will happen when we do this" variety. Questions like these don't give us any sort of goal to strive for.

jc104's Weather Balancer: Well, first off, to address the top of your post, I want to say that what I am asking for is less about concept type and more about concept presentation. I want to see that people have ideas about what specifically we should be trying to learn about with it, as vague concepts have cause us problems in the past. That being said, I think your concept does a good job of this. Of all the weather concepts I have seen throughout the past few CAP projects, this is probably my favorite. The biggest flaw in a lot of weather concepts is that they assume that one Pokemon can do way more than it should be reasonably be able to do. Stopping weather in a single Pokemon is simply impossible. That's what I like about this, it admits that and instead tries to slightly impact some of the weathers in a way that will make all of them more balanced. Additionally, this specifically looks at team types rather than a lot of weather related things which spend too much time focusing on the starters alone. While I have always felt that weather concepts are always somewhat limited, I think this is a very well made concept that, if it is a road we want to take, is quite possibly the best way to go about it.

LightningLord2's Mind Master: Prediction has always been something that interests me, however, as you said yourself, this concept seems very similar to the one we just did for Aurumoth. If you are looking to improve it, I would definitely try and find a way to differentiate it more.

noobiess's Behind Bars: Honestly, this one I just don't see working. While interesting, Imprison is just a mediocre move. You need a decent movepool to make use of it well, but if you have a decent movepool you likely have better things to do. It's simply too limited of a move for us to get much out of.

GRs Cousin's Frostbite: Freeze huh. Interesting. However, this is another one of those concepts that sounds cool in theory but I can't ever see it turning out well. Without resorting to custom mechanics (some of which are now against the rules and all of which I just generally hate), the best we can ever hope to achieve is around a 20% freeze rate. People complain all the time about 70% not being reliable, so 20 is just not gonna cut it.

scorpdestroyer's All Hail Hail: Well, to be frank, I love hail as a weather and think that finding a way for hail to be relevant in the OU metagame would be awesome. However, I have a hard time believing that we would get more out of this than something like the Weather Balancer concept above. I have always thought hail could make a good concept, but I think you would need to focus more on what making hail better could serve to teach us about weather itself or the metagame as a whole.

Aerophoenix's Psych Out: Mind games are an awesome part of competitive games that are rarely analyzed to their full extent. Concepts like this have popped up the past few projects, and I have always been a supporter of them due to the potential they have for teaching us things that you simply cannot get out of math or statistical analysis. As I have been doing a lot, I want to once more point to the questions as a good measure of the concept. I feel you hit a lot of the right notes with these. They are complex questions that are not simply a matter of "let's try it and see". However, I am a bit concerned in that even with these good questions there is a bit of vagueness in what the end goal is. I'd like to see a bit more about what things we should be looking to get out of the process discussions themselves, and not just overall conclusions we can draw based on the success, or lack thereof, of the final result. What you have now is definitely a good base though.

The Steam Punk's The Perfect Gimmick: Probably the biggest problem here is that it focuses on gimmicks, which by their very nature have problems competing. If they were good, they wouldn't be considered a gimmick. The only real exception here is probably Wobbuffet. However, even with something like that, I simply do not see us getting much out of the process.

Lamoprigma's Complete Focus: This concept is way too vague right now. Its true that highly specialized Pokemon rarely take the spotlight in the competitive metagame. The majority of threats are bulky attackers who are very much the opposite of this idea. However, this concept suffers from a lack of focus and has no real goal for us to aim for.

Unitas's One-Timer: This is another concept that seems to suffer from a lack of focus. Being able to do something quickly is a cool idea, but why would something that is good when it comes in suddenly stop being good later? It seems to me like this concept is thinking too much about trying to change the metagame, and not enough about the why or the how.

ganj4lF's Offense-breaker: So I think this one is a pretty cool idea. Bulky offense is the norm in most of our metagames, with more supportive and hyper-O type threats filling out the rest. Very few Pokemon can brag about the ability to take anything, and among those Pokemon who are used for the ability to take hits, most of them are only used because they also can provide support. Learning more about the role of pure, non-supportive, defense could be very interesting and may help explain why some existing Pokemon see the usage, or lack thereof, that they do.

And... that's the end of page one. I need to take a short break from typing, but I will get to responding to the rest in a bit.

EDIT: oh, and to anyone who's concept I talked about above made aditional comments in a later post, I will be sure to look them over too.

Description - Pokemon is used to successfully counter and reduce the advantages of weather against its team.

Justification -
- Could make metagame more diverse by letting weatherless teams fend against the clearly advantages weather teams, clearing room for more creativity.
- Will change metagame, introduce new niche, and allow influx of new ideas and pokemon due to more flexible team building on weatherless teams.
- Lets us learn about how weather can restrict the metagame and how having a valid counter to it possibly allows for more varied team building

Questions To Be Answered - OU usage is deadlocked between 10-15 staples and common pokemon. Does weather force us to use these staples or is entirely a lack of creativity? How can we counter weather and fight it with a specific pokemon? Can a valid answer to weather shake up our metagame and bring more diversity and creativity back?

Explanation: Introducing a pokemon capable of fending off weather would allow team building to be more flexible. Instead of having to rely on the same pokemon and rigid cores to counter weather and run it, this pokemon would neuter the effects of enemy weather and allow space for new pokemon. Weatherless teams that struggle with growth Venusaur and the like can now add pokemon that help them offensively without worrying about being swept by the next sun team on the lader. Instead of playing the weather game, this pokemon is simply very effective against weather teams and weather sweepers, while also being decent overall.

Well, I suppose I may as well take a stab at this.This is inspired by the Necturna concept, if anyone's wondering.

Name: Robot in DisguiseGeneral Description: This Pokemon uses Transform to great effect, using it not as a gimmick but as an integral (though not necessarily central) part of one or more sets.Justification: Being distributed to solely Ditto, Smeargle, and Mew, Transform has a bad rep. Ditto doesn't need it and Mew and Smeargle have better things to do. This is unfortunate, considering the advantage that having any one of the opponent's Pokemon at your disposal can lend. With this concept, we could investigate the nuances of a move that currently doesn't warrant such investigation due to its lacklustre distribution.Questions to be Answered:

How can we ensure that Transform is a favored move choice for CAP 5?

What mechanic of Transform would be most beneficial to bring to CAP 5's disposal?

To what degree will CAP 5's inherent attributes (stats, movepool, ability, typing) affect its viability, considering that Transforming into an opponent and forfeiting these potential advantages will presumably be a common move?

Explanation: While it may seem ridiculously gimmicky, Transform has merit in various forms. If this concept is chosen for CAP 5, it could potentially become viable to forgo hazard users and Rapid Spinners when teambuilding and make use of the extra slot(s) to aid in the team's general function. By using Transform with correct timing, CAP 5 could satisfy any of these roles, as well as more. With a useful typing and bulk but low speed, Choice Scarf CAP 5 could prove to be an enormously useful utility check to setup sweepers. By using Transform on the boost, you end up faster than their sweeper due to your Choice Scarf and possibly able to clean out the opponent's team. CAP 5 could also run a simple bulky set to scout the opponent's movesets on Pokemon with 4MSS, allowing one to take on powerful threats with increased security. On the contrary, an offensive CAP 5 would also be able to mindgame various offensive opponents with a Choice Scarf and the combination of Transform+coverage move; because the opponent can either set up or attack, CAP 5 could potentially take the correct move and then retaliate with a powerful attack, all the while still functioning as a revenge killer for the team.

Moderator

Justification: When OU players are asked what needs to change about OU, the two most common responses are "weather" and "hazards." This concept looks at the problem of hazards, seeing what makes certain hazard layers and removers more effective, and whether a Pokemon with no selling points other than its control over hazards can make it in OU.

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The problem I personally have with this concept, is that I worry that we end up with a better Espeon / Xatu. Heck, the solution to fullfilling the above concept is "give any half decent mon Magic Mirror and we are successful". People have already highlighted the fact that it can possibly be a better Forretress (or a Ferrothorn with Rapid Spin) and I just worry that we end up with a CAP thats just an upgraded Forry / Ferro / Espeon or something. I would really like this CAP to differentiate itself from the above pokemon but I don't think the concept can handle this

Pwnemon do you envision any ideas or strategies that would limit or prevent this or is the concept really about making a new Espeon / Xatu / Forretress / Ferrothorn?

I'd like to put my full support behind the concept of Hazard Control, which in my opinion has the most potential out of any of the current concepts.

Right now Hazards rule all the metagames. There is no meta, except for Smogon Doubles, in which Hazards do not play an integral role. Whether it is Deoxys-D Hyper Offense or Rain Stall or whatever every single team in the current OU meta runs some form of hazards, so a pokemon designed around control over hazards would be very impactful.

It also would force us to learn a lot about the nature of hazards and momentum. Rapid Spin is almost by definition a move that loses you momentum, yet it is the only way to actively deal with hazards. Looking at a way to make Rapid Spin more useful a move would be a really interesting way of looking at Hazard Control.

However what could be even more successful would looking at a pokemon that can reliably beat the primary hazard setters in the meta while not being a strong offensive threat outside of that role. For instance a pokemon with Prankster Taunt to stop hazards from coming up, and some other way of then incapacitating said hazard layer.

The problem I personally have with this concept, is that I worry that we end up with a better Espeon / Xatu. Heck, the solution to fullfilling the above concept is "give any half decent mon Magic Mirror and we are successful". People have already highlighted the fact that it can possibly be a better Forretress (or a Ferrothorn with Rapid Spin) and I just worry that we end up with a CAP thats just an upgraded Forry / Ferro / Espeon or something. I would really like this CAP to differentiate itself from the above pokemon but I don't think the concept can handle this

Pwnemon do you envision any ideas or strategies that would limit or prevent this or is the concept really about making a new Espeon / Xatu / Forretress / Ferrothorn?

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IMO the minute we throw Magic Bounce onto a mon it just becomes Xatu/Espeon 2.0 as those pokemon are kind of solely defined by that ability. It's just that good. You don't look at them for any other reason other then the fact that they have magic bounce, so by default any mon that gets magic bounce will just be a better Xatu/Espeon with a 99% likelyhood. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

A hazard mon isn't JUST about hazards though. For example, Ferrothorn has impressive offensive coverage and leech seed, while Forretress has Rapid Spin and Volt Switch, Deoxys-D has speedy taunt and is hard to OHKO, etc etc. Every hazard setter has their own defined niche, and I don't see a hazard control mon having a hard time finding its own niche.

General Description: A Pokemon that, through low stats and/or shallow movepool, looks mediocre at first glance, but has just the right tools to fill a previously unfilled niche (or even surpass certain OU Pokemon at their roles).

Justification: Most of OU is filled with high-BST monsters who use sheer stats to muscle through or wall much of the tier. There also Pokemon who simply use their massive movepools to get the jump on would-be checks or support their team like nothing else. This concept seeks to find out if a Pokemon lacking in one or both of these areas can still function as well as a top-tier OU Pokemon. In addition, this would be a refreshing break from the previous CAPmons, who have grown increasingly powerful.

Questions to be answered:
- Can a Pokemon with almost nothing be given just what's needed to succeed in OU?
- Just what IS being successful in OU?
- How far outside the mold can we go to carve a new niche with CAP5?
- Where can we look for inspiration? Is there a Pokemon in a lower tier that fills a niche unseen in OU that we can study as well?- Why can't Woodchuck stop making puns?

Explanation: I'm pretty sure that we've all complained about power creep at some point or another. High-BST Pokemon and things with more viable moves on one set than you can count on both hands (unless you're some freak with seven on each hand or something) are everywhere. There's a few important Pokemon that stand out though - Xatu and Magic Bounce, Dugtrio and Arena Trap, Breloom and Spore (would anyone have thought of it if it didn't have Spore?), Gorebyss and SmashPass, even Smeargle with Sketch. Another example is Liepard in NU - Swagger, Thunder Wave and Substitute are common moves, but what other Pokemon can abuse them with Prankster and an immunity? What Pokemon gets STAB Foul Play on top of that? There are successful Pokemon who can overcome BST with a single move/ability or a small combination of moves.

The above Pokemon are examples. Not Pokemon we should directly imitate.

Yes, I am aware that my concept is similar to zyrefredric's. My concept, however, is more narrowly focused, spending less time on the "low BST" part and more emphasis on the "don't need absurd stats/movepool to carve a niche" part.

General Description: A pokemon that can easily thrive in all 4 weather types via forme changing.

Justification:There are 2 things Pokemon as a franchise does well right now.
1. Weather.
2. New formes of Pokemon with different stats.
Everyone is getting sick of the same old weather wars, so why not shake things up quite a bit? The idea may seem overpowered at first, but with varying sets of stats, its function in any weather (or no weather) can be entirely different, even to the point that if your own weather goes down, your EV spread and moveset can end up screwing you over.

Questions To Be Answered: How can a mon thrive in all four weather types at once?
Is a changing BST even remotely usable in a competitive situation?
Will the mon be able to function in a multi-weather situation?
Can the mon be used effectively outside of weather?
What sort of BST would be weather appropriate?
How wide should a movepool for a weather warrior be?
How will the forme changing work?

Explanation: Imagine Castform (or Rotom to a lesser extent), but better. Depending on how you want the forme changing to work, it could be either a usable Castform, or a weather-oriented Rotom. Basically, this Pokemon can either be too versatile, and spread itself too thin, or be too niche, and be completely unusable after a short amount of time.
Just think: a Pokemon that has the ability to change it's secondary (or only) typing and base stats depending on the weather. It could easily be its greatest asset and weakness at the same time.

IMO the minute we throw Magic Bounce onto a mon it just becomes Xatu/Espeon 2.0 as those pokemon are kind of solely defined by that ability. It's just that good. You don't look at them for any other reason other then the fact that they have magic bounce, so by default any mon that gets magic bounce will just be a better Xatu/Espeon with a 99% likelyhood. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

A hazard mon isn't JUST about hazards though. For example, Ferrothorn has impressive offensive coverage and leech seed, while Forretress has Rapid Spin and Volt Switch, Deoxys-D has speedy taunt and is hard to OHKO, etc etc. Every hazard setter has their own defined niche, and I don't see a hazard control mon having a hard time finding its own niche.

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While I agree that Espeon/Xatu 2.0 would definitely come about from slapping Magic Mirror onto a Pokémon, I think that you could also make a case that an Espeon/Xatu 2.0 would actually help the metagame a little, considering the fact that Xatu is UU and Espeon only has okay usage in OU.

I don't like this concept, however. Not because it's bad, but because it seems like every part of it has been done before. We have Rapid Spinners with all the Hazards (Forretress), and two Pokémon with Magic Mirror. There's not much we could gain from this, and unless we think up a new Rapid Spin or a new ability that screws over hazards, there's not much that CAP 5 could get out of this on a knowledge basis.

Moderator

I understand completely where the detractors to my concept are coming from, so I've virtually revamped it. No longer is it about making an Espeon/Ferrothorn 2.0—its goal is now to actually reduce the importance of the hazard metagame in the tier. While most Pokemon with moves such as Rapid Spin actually /add/ to the hazard meta, its goal is to actively deter it. It should be a much more interesting concept to pursue now!

While I agree that Espeon/Xatu 2.0 would definitely come about from slapping Magic Mirror onto a Pokémon, I think that you could also make a case that an Espeon/Xatu 2.0 would actually help the metagame a little, considering the fact that Xatu is UU and Espeon only has okay usage in OU.

I don't like this concept, however. Not because it's bad, but because it seems like every part of it has been done before. We have Rapid Spinners with all the Hazards (Forretress), and two Pokémon with Magic Mirror. There's not much we could gain from this, and unless we think up a new Rapid Spin or a new ability that screws over hazards, there's not much that CAP 5 could get out of this on a knowledge basis.

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I think that a rapid spinner with all the hazards is the wrong to look at this.
Rapid Spin is an inherently risky move, that loses you momentum. A Hazard Control pokemon wouldn't need Magic Bounce or just Rapid Spin + Hazards to fulfill it's role.

For instance it just people a pokemon designed to threaten the major hazard layers in the meta to for a switch and then clean up with Rapid Spin. Or a pokemon with a fast sleep to incapacitate an opposing pokemon and then spin against it. Some that is capable of effectively dealing with the pokemon that set hazards while at the same time removing hazards is another interesting way to tackle the issue.

Concept: "The Glue"Description: This pokémon would be the ultimate "glue" for a team.

Justification: This pokémon would create a niche that others struggle to fill. The recently banned genesect was the best example of glue that has surfaced in the OU metagame for a while, and it turned out to be overpowered. It would allow us to learn how "glue" is important to teams and what styles benefit the most from it.

Questions to be answered:

What defines "glue", and how can a pokémon be effective on a variety of different team types?

How can a pokémon be beneficial to a large amount of teams and not be overpowered?

How are some different ways a pokémon can hold the rest of the team together?

Explanation: I've heard the term glue passed around a lot, especially during the genesect suspect test. As far as I can tell, glue is something between posing a threat while still supporting the rest of the team. But what does that mean exactly? And how can a "glue-mon" be effective without being overpowered? This concept would probably place heavy emphasis on teambuilding and versatility as it should have various options to help out various teams. It would help us define the most beneficial roles to have on a team in today's metagame.

While I realize this concept is a bit pre-game centric, so to speak, it is quite relevant. Teambuilding has come to define BW2 OU, whether its weather, HO, or other archetypes, it's hard to succeed without a central focus for your team.

Name: Vola-utility ReduxDescription: A pokemon whose greatest strength comes from its ability to control the opponent's actions through inflicting volatile statuses (Taunt, Torment, Embargo, etc). Justification: Normal Statuses are prevalent. They can be game changing. Parahax, Sleephax, Freezehax, 3 statuses that can rob momentum from the opponent. Poison, Burn, Badly Poison all issue a time table for how long a pokemon can be expected to survive. Taunt, Torment, Embargo all disrupt the opponent like the hax trio does. Unlike the normal statuses, Volatile status can easily be removed and they require more strategy to use effectively. The volatile statuses are more about control. Either limiting a player's options with attacks or forcing them to gamble with the ability to pull off an attack. It is an alternative perspective on control.

Questions to be Answered:
-What role do volatile status effects play in the metagame?
-How does the ease of fixing volatile effects impact their usefulness?
-What ways can one deal or cope with volatile effects?
-How do volatile statuses support a team as a whole?
-How can other pokemon support a volatile status inducer?

Explanation:
Volatile statuses are more about controlling the opponent and limiting their options. It provides a quick shut down for reliable status inducers. Your opponent's ability to stall is limited. This pokemon would not be an effective sweeper. One could not just plop it down and after a turn of set-up sweep the opposing team.
Volatile statuses are unreliable. They can be defeated by switching pokemon, with the optional switch or U-Turn and Volt Switch. But beauty comes with that supposed unreliability. It enables the player to control the opponent. It can force a switch. It can limit the number of moves the opponent can use. With the right combination of volatile statuses, the opponent can be forced to use struggle.
According to Bulbapedia, Volatile statuses include: Confusion, (Ghost) Curse, Disable, Embargo, Encore, Flinch, Heal Block, Identification (Removable of Immunity with Foresight, Odor Sleuth, Miracle Eye), Infatuation, Nightmare, Partially Trapped (Magma Storm, Whirlpool, etc), Perish Song, Leech Seed, Taunt, Torment, and Trapped (Block, Mean Look, etc)

Description: A pokemon that can use stat-lowering moves to terrifying effect.

Justification: As of now, stat-lowering moves are beyond useless. This concept seeks to make stat-lowering moves more relevant through anything from abilities to movesets.

Questions To Be Answered:

Can a "weak" move be overpowered in the right conditions?

How would this concept affect the usage of other often ignored moves and abilities?

Would this concept be used mostly to abuse weaknesses, or to whittle strengths?

What does it take to make harmless dangerous?

Ignoring overpowered dream combinations, what combinations of stats, typings, abilities, and moves could realistically occur that could make a weak group of moves usable, or even powerful?

Explanation: Stat-lowering moves, since the beginning, have been
disregarded due to the simple premise in which they can be blocked, switching out.
However, if some pokemon can effectively use weaker moves, why can't these be used as well? Moves such as block, and abilities such as shadow tag, arena trap, and magnet pull, as well as the right stats, could create a pokemon that can effectively use moves like screech to it's advantage.

For example, consider a pokemon with 70/70/50/70/50/70 stats. This could be weak, but consider the addition of shadow tag, or perhaps arena trap. Suddenly, blissey and fortress can't escape. It likely doesn't matter though, since they laugh at this pokemon's pitiful stats. But, add a move like fake tears, and this pokemon really shines, disabling pokemon's defenses is a powerful tactic, and suddenly, blissey has the defenses of a happiny. Yet this is a pokemon that can be OHKO'ed by a long list of pokemon.

That alone poses a huge threat to walls. However, let's change the stats. 50/70/50/70/50/90 stats. Add shadow tag again, and this time, it'll use charm and screech . With the same stat total, it becomes a pokemon that can disable a donphan, destroying a team's rapid spinner without much effort. In fact, any slow bulky attacker is going to suffer. Once again, despite it's seemingly great power, it with faint with the lightest breeze.

Lastly, take the 70/70/50/70/50/70 model, and give it block, as well as only attack-lowering moves. It becomes a supporter capable of setting up slower pokemon for disposal by its far stronger teamates with little cost to the heavy hitters. This is all with a stat total of below 400, comparable to a powerhouses like sableye, and lower than combusken's. It outedges spinda by 20. Yet this is a truly viable threat in any scenario. I think it would be interesting to see what a CAP which sets out to make bad moves better could do. I think I've said enough, so that's it.

General Discription. This Pokemon is designed to rule the metagame via priority

Justification

Some pokemon are destined to fail. Examples include Rampardos, and Sableye prior to Gen V. However, Sableye shot up from PU in DPPT to UU in BW, simply because of Prankster. If we look at December 2012 usage stas, we see that Scizor and Breloom sit at #1 and 10, respectively. What do they have in common? Technician and acess to STAB priority moves. Concidence?

Questions to be answered
Does priority affect a Pokemon's viability?
Can access to priority overcome other undesirable traits?
Are their certain abilities that benefit priority more than others?
What type(s) make priority viable?Explination

Most threats in the metagame are good because of huge offensive prowess, weather, Typing, or a combination of these. However, two top tier threats stand out among these. Scizor and Breloom, hitting #1 and 10 respectively in December's usage statistics are both most feared for their incredibly powerful priority moves. What if we took many of the traits they have, and create the ultimate priority pokemon. In balanced hackmons, I have been using technician Rampardos with great effect. It destroys teams with powerful priority moves. I think this would be an interesting project to work on, and I hope you guys (and girls) will agree. Thank you for your time.

BTW since The Unlucky one's post is technically invalid, I figured this would be OK. Please do not delete this, I have been waiting since I got into CAP4 too late.

Name: Vola-utilityDescription: A pokemon whose greatest strength comes from its ability to inflict volatile statuses (Confusion, Attraction, Taunt, Torment, etc).
Justification: Badly Poisoned, Burn, Sleep, Paralysis are a number of major fears in the metagame. Those can be easily worked around and often times turn into a boon. What I feel is most important is that this will be a reprieve from an increasing trend of high powered pokemon with minimal and often intangible drawbacks. Indeed, this would require more skill than brute force.

Questions to be Answered:
-What role do volatile status effects play in the metagame?
-Is it even possible for volatile status effects to consistently play an important part of the metagame?
-How does the ease of fixing volatile effects impact their usefulness?
-What can be classified as a volatile status effect?
-Will this lead to a rise of use for pokemon that can turn volatile effects into a boon?

Explanation:
Imagine a pokemon that can reliably confuse, attract, taunt, torment, quash, embargo, etc. its opponents. One of three things will happen. People will switch out their pokemon to get rid of the status. People will use u-Turn Volt Switch to get rid of the status. Pokemon will be unable to move. This makes it easier to predict what someone will do without having it backfire on you.

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I like your idea. It's a lot more specific than the idea I made about 2 weeks ago, which involved screech and shadow tag abuse, and I can see it having a excellent effect on the metagame. I hope your idea does well.